In-process Material Evaluation of Welding and Additive Manufacturing

This project aligns directly with the key deliverables in the 5-year plan entitled "Towards Industry 4.0: In-process Repair of Welding and Wire Additive Manufacturing (IRWWAM)" associated with the Strathclyde Chancellor's Fellow joint appointment between the EEE and DMEM for the primary supervisor (Dr Javadi). The core of this ambitious plan is fully automated Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) in robotic welding and Wire Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM), where the three main research themes are: (I) in-process defect detection, (II) in-process residual stress measurement and (III) in-process material evaluation. When these three core research themes are coupled with process modelling and simulation, the project will deliver an Industry 4.0 adopted system in which the sample can be fully inspected and importantly, repaired during the manufacturing process, if deemed necessary by the system. The in-situ measurement systems will be also linked to the manufacturing system for improving the quality control and creation of a closed-loop feedback system. Manufacturing within the IRWWAM framework will save time and energy (which is usually wasted in backward transmissions between the manufacturing and inspection stations) and hence will be better for the environment. The main plan is then in line with the national UK government post-COVID recovery plan.
This PhD will focus on the in-process monitoring of the material evolution during welding and additive manufacturing. The necessity of "in-process" evaluation has been justified by the Centre for Ultrasonic Engineering (CUE) when the in-process inspection was established for the multi-pass welding [Javadi et al, Materials & Design, Volume 191, 2020]. However, this was not extended to the residual stress and material evaluation and there is currently no NDT method to monitor the residual stress during the welding and additive manufacturing. The in-process residual stress and material evaluation will be considered in this project and the following research and technical activities shall be involved in the studies: NDE material evaluation, finite element simulation, process modelling and verification, in-process inspection, in-process measurement of the residual stress, and Industry 4.0.
The project will be based in the new Faculty of Engineering facility "Robotically Enabled Sensing (RES)" laboratory and will link directly with the NDE research team operating within CUE and its Technology & Innovation Centre (TIC) laboratories. Through CUE, the project will complement Strathclyde's current collaboration with The UK Research Centre in NDE (RCNDE) research. There will also be both training and collaboration opportunities within the CDTs hosted with FUSE, FIND and Advanced Photonics.